Thursday, December 20, 2012

1911 - Triangle Waist Company Fire, New York City

“...I
learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can
picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone
sidewalk.

Thud-dead,
thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead. Sixty-two thud-deads. I call them
that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each
time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them
as they came down. The height was eighty feet.The first ten
thud-deads shocked me. I looked up-saw that there were scores of
girls at the windows. The flames from the floor below were beating in
their faces. Somehow I knew that they, too, must come down, and
something within me-something that I didn't know was there-steeled
me...

I
looked upon the heap of dead bodies and I remembered these girls were
the shirtwaist makers. I remembered their great strike of last year
in which these same girls had demanded more sanitary conditions and
more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies were the
answer.”

Article
written by eye-witness - William Shepherd. Published in Milwaukee
Journal, Wisconsin, March 27, 1911.

In November of 1909, 20,000 women garment industry
workers went on strike to protest poor working conditions. These
women worked long hours in horrible conditions. In some cases, their
employers even locked the emergency exits to keep out the labor
unions. In March 25, 1911, their nightmare came true. Workers, mostly
in their teens, were trapped inside the burning building in which
they were employed, the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. With emergency doors
locked from the outside and a failing elevator, they had two choices:
burn in the fire or jump out the window. Unfortunately, they were on
the 8th floor. 141 people perished that day.